Well now, that is a loaded question. Loaded like a loaded meatball! So, your dog likes spaghetti does he? Ours do too. You can’t help but fling dogs a few strands of pasta noodles after they’ve cooled a bit. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? It all depends where your line is for giving your pup ‘scraps.’ But there are some precautions with pasta, and honestly, there is a little known secret about ‘spaghetti’ that will have you and your doggo jumping for joy with the answer to: Can my dog eat spaghetti? Mangia the Pasta? Here’s the deal with pasta, it’s really not a dog’s thing. Why? While pasta isn’t harmful to dogs when given in small amounts, dogs intestinal systems give clues to what they should eat. Species designed with long intestines, like dogs, fall into the ‘omnivore’ category. So dogs are more of a spicy meatball kinda species rather than a pasta lovin’ species. Well, not spicy in the literal sense, but I think you get my gist (and hopefully my humor). Pasta is comprised of wheat flour and egg. While a bit of wheat won’t hurt a dog, they really wouldn’t select it if left to their own devices and their gastrointestinal system’s fermentation process isn’t designed to break down this type of food source for their nutritional needs. So, in other words, why bother…and remember food is about nutrition, not about comfort or tasty treats. Feeding your dog without keeping nutrition the focus can lead to health decline seen in humans: weight gain, diabetes, and in some cases heart disease. How About Meatballs? Eating a spaghetti...

Throughout history, humans have shared their lives with dogs. A companion animal’s diet consisted of food left over from its caretaker’s diet. If a dog’s family was wealthy, then the dog ate better – remember, dogs were a luxury item primarily owned by the rich. The concept of domesticating an animal really took hold in the late 1800’s with the birth of veterinary medicine – the idea being that dogs had to lose their ‘taste’ for blood in order to live with people. Wild animals ate fresh meat and thus domesticated dogs should not. Not science, but the concept took hold. Little by little there was a shift from pets eating natural foods to packaged ‘pet food,’ and then things really took a turn – here’s how World War II changed pet food. More Pet Food History Through the ages, humans have explored the world – looking for new places. One barrier to exploration was food. No different than if you were camping out in the boondocks. While you might get dirty without a shower, and have to be creative with your bathroom activity, you could only stay out in the middle of nowhere until you ran out of food and water… Or you’d die. Same was true for world exploration. Thus ‘packaged’ food was created – think Neil Armstrong and the astronauts. Explorers traveled by boat that, unlike today, required ‘man-power’ to travel across oceans. Man-power required food that would not spoil – and so they were fed things that lacked fresh produce and proteins (as these items would rot), and as a result lacked nutrition. But what they were...

We live in the Pacific Northwest. Often times when I say that, in my mind I hear the call of trumpets and envision fish jumping about in a glacial stream while glorious pine trees billow in the mountain wind. Yup, I’m in love with the beautiful PNW, truly an awe inspiring part of this glorious country. We value organic farm-fresh fruits and vegetables, and ranchers are allowed to graze cattle in national forest land free of herbicides and pesticides – and our salmon are some of the best you’ll ever taste, fresh from ocean and rivers. The abundance of high-quality food is one of the reasons we cook for our dogs. Cooking for Your Dog The main source of protein for one of our dogs is fish. Lulu’s diet consists of a majority of fish protein if mixed with other sources. We often make her salmon or sardine-based meals and treats. Mookie on the other hand can eat any protein, including salmon, beef, lamb, buffalo, turkey, duck and chicken. We cook and un-cook meals for our dogs. Un-cook? Yup, raw. Our dogs eat a wide-variety of high-quality food that we cook and un-cook for them. The trick with raw food is proper handling techniques and to freeze it all, and safely thaw the portion you serve each day. Don’t save left overs in the fridge. Put them back in the freezer (only once) and serve what remains in a few days (again follow safe thawing protocol). Cooking for your dog is fairly simple: cook like you would for yourself, using dog-safe ingredients, and again freeze. Don’t give your dog cooked bones, period. It’s really not that complicated...

You want to know a secret? We save money making our own homemade dog treats. We’re learning to live more thriftily as soon we’ll leave city life for full time cozy cabin living, where we’ll grow our own food. Thanks to 1960’s and 70’s we Americans became fascinated with fast food and now many of us take for granted that dog treats are prepackaged and purchased from a grocery store. But they don’t need to be. Particularly when you want to save money and be in charge of your dog’s health. Seriously, who doesn’t what those two things? How To Save Money Making Homemade Dog Treats Fruits Dogs Can Eat Apple Apricot Banana Blackberry Blueberry Cantaloupe Cranberry Honeydew Mango Orange Peach Pear Pineapple Raspberry Strawberry Watermelon Veggies Dogs Can Eat Asparagus Beet Broccoli Brussel Sprout Cabbage Carrot Cauliflower Celery Cucumber Egg Plant Green Bean Greens Kale Potato Squash Sweet Potato Proteins Dogs Can Eat Beef Bison Buffalo Chicken Duck Egg Exotics Lamb Legumes Ostrich Salmon Sardines Turkey Venison Whitefish etc Make sure the money saving, homemade treats you give your dog are foods that he or she can tolerate (we learned this the hard way), and that pit-based fruit are sliced generously (leaving some flesh on the pit).Peel skins where appropriate and par-steam some veggies (e.g. broccoli, brussels, etc.). Follow safe raw meat handling procedures. Start by feeding your dog in little amounts – not Manwich™ size meals! Use ingredients from the meals you prepare for yourself to make small portions versus a big bag of treats. Dehydrate homemade dog treats, ensure they are moisture free, and store in the fridge in airtight containers (up to...

If you are a pet lover you are seeing more ‘human grade’ labels on pet food. Human grade…for dogs. As though human grade means something. Cheetos are human grade. So are pizza rolls. Did your eyes just glaze over there? Okay, but these human grade items aren’t even human. So don’t get all highfaluting that dogs are somehow getting in on your shtick, stealing your special food thunder. Is human grade dog food a thing or is it just marketing? Is human-grade pet food a thing or is it just marketing? #petfood #petnutrition Click To Tweet What is the Deal with Human Grade Dog Food? Everyone wants to know what they are eating…until they don’t. I really want to know what’s in my Wendy’s Asian Cashew Salad, but you really don’t have to tell me what I’m eating when I elect to eat a potato chip. My guess is there’s very little potato in it. La la la la…ignorance is bliss. But ignorance can hurt you. Pet owner’s demands for more transparency has caused angst in the commercial dog food industry. What human grade really means is that it is fit for human consumption. But… I just told you that I, like you, would eat a potato chip. So really, is there a big difference? What Does Human Grade Mean? Human grade also means that the entire process has regulations to ensure strict standards for how the food is prepared – ensuring quality, cleanliness, and safety. In a nutshell, human grade also means that the food is prepared in a facility that complies with the FDA’s standards for human food. There are...

I love coconut. My sister hates coconut. I love it so much that as a kid, I ate an entire bag of flaked coconut. It was good! My sister had a spoonful and threw up. How can two people, from the same parents have such dissimilar tastes? Memories from a long time ago recently came back while feeding our dogs. Our boy Mookie? I can feed him anything. Duck, turkey, beef, buffalo, sardines, you name it, he eats it with no problems – pretty sure he’d eat sasquatch and be fine. Our girl dog, and Mookie’s sister, Lulu? Everything but the sardines gave her the runs…dog diarrhea! Then it hit me, our dog has a magical butt…time for fish! Magical Butt Dog – or – Dog Diarrhea It really didn’t matter what I gave our sweet little Lulu – she gave it right back…from a different end of her body. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes she’d give it immediately back just like my sister with her coconut aversion, most times it was the other end. I became a purveyor of dog shampoo. Washing my Lulu’s magical dog diarrhea butt became a lather, rinse, repeat deal. It didn’t start this way with Lulu – it began eight months after we adopted her (from CA). Lulu never gave me a hint she had issues with her meals other than her diarrhea. She happily gobbled down anything. And it wasn’t constant. If we rotated the protein in her meals she’d do okay for a little while, but eventually that would be it. Break open the dog shampoo. Why Our Dog Has a Magical Butt...